How to Recognize Negative Thoughts and Reframe Them for Positive Change

Transform Your Mindset and Improve Your Mental Health with These 7 Practical Strategies

Our emotions, behaviors, and general mental health are all significantly impacted by our negative thoughts. These thoughts can be highly self-critical, judgemental, and overly worrisome, often preventing you from fulfilling your highest potential. Recognizing negative thoughts as they appear and reframing them into more empowered thoughts can help you break the cycle of self-sabotaging, people-pleasing, and many other negative behavior patterns.

Where do negative thoughts come from?

As humans, we have an inherent tendency to think negatively. This tendency is often referred to as our brain’s negativity bias. Negative experiences are more dangerous and life-threatening than positive ones, so the negativity bias has developed a survival mechanism. And for many years, it has kept humans safe. However, in today’s society, our negativity bias often results in distorted viewpoints and tendencies to empathize with the negative parts of life.

Learning about the negativity bias helped me understand why my mind was overly focused on the negative and helped me disidentify my negative thoughts. I wasn't a negative person after all. I lacked the mental tools to manage my mind and cultivate a realistic mindset.

Our negativity bias explains why we mostly have negative thoughts, but it's not the only source of negative thoughts. Internal and external factors add to our negative thoughts, such as past experiences, traumas, negative self-talk, internalized negative voices, thinking errors (cognitive distortions), and other mental health conditions.

Remember that negative thoughts are normal in the human experience; everyone experiences them occasionally. However, when negative thoughts become automatic, persistent, or overwhelming, addressing the issue and seeking support if necessary is essential.

Self-reflection questions to explore your negative thoughts

It's essential to raise your awareness of negative thoughts to recognize and reframe them. To explore your negative thoughts, try asking yourself any of the following questions:

• What circumstances or situations cause me to have negative thoughts?

• What patterns of negative self-talk do I observe in myself?